ABC News special on Michael Jackson raises questions

NEW YORK -- ABC News said it didn't pay for interviews on this week's Michael Jackson special -- but some of the subjects were paid nonetheless.

The news program, "Michael Jackson's Secret World," contained interviews conducted for a British documentary on Jackson that aired in that country earlier this year. ABC paid for the U.S. rights to the film, and the British producers paid for some of the interviews.

At least one of ABC's competitors said it was interested in the documentary, but the arrangement left its executives uncomfortable.

"We screened it," said Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of CBS's "48 Hours Mysteries." "We decided as a network news organization not to make a bid, because as a news program, the paid participation was a problem for us."

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider emphasized the network made no payments of its own to sources and disclosed the arrangement to viewers.

"It is a common practice in Britain to compensate interview subjects," he said. He would not say who was paid or how much, but said appearance fees were generally less than $1,000.

A spokesman for Tiger Aspect, the British producers, referred all questions to ABC News.

ABC put "Tiger Aspect" on the corner of the screen during interviews with subjects including LaToya Jackson, Michael's sister; biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli; journalists Maureen Orth and Diane Dimond; actor Emmanuel Lewis; and Terry George, a British man who claimed Jackson had phone sex with him more than 20 years ago. ABC correspondent Martin Bashir also interviewed George.

Schneider would not say what ABC paid for rights to air portions of the documentary. Someone familiar with such rights negotiations predicted it was more than a half-million dollars.

Paying news subjects for interviews is generally frowned upon in the United States, and ABC is among the news organizations that has a policy against it.

"We are certainly very wary of using material that involves payment for interviews," said Bill Wheatley, NBC News vice president, who was unaware of whether NBC had been approached about the footage. "Anytime you pay for an interview, you run the risk that the interviewee is in effect performing, rather than telling an honest story, to get payment."

In a note to viewers at the beginning of the two-hour show, ABC News explained the arrangement. "Some of the individuals who appeared in that [British] documentary received compensation. ... No payment was made for any of the interviews conducted by Martin Bashir and ABC News," the network said.

ABC News checked all of the documentary's interview subjects for errors and obtained the full transcripts of interview portions that weren't aired in Britain, Schneider said.

"I am certain that the AP picked up quotations from the documentary and relayed those quotes on the wire," Schneider said. "Is that not an analogous situation?" (There's no evidence The Associated Press used material from these interviews).

Generally, news organizations should not pay for interviews unless the news is compelling and can't be obtained any other way, said Aly Colon, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute. Whether or not this situation fit the bill, it's important that ABC made the situation clear to viewers, he said.

But he said the arrangement still raised questions.

"The only difference in my view is that they didn't stick their hand into the mud," Colon said. "They let someone else do it."

Ethical standards can sometimes get murky when television news organizations are competing for interviews. Morning news shows won't pay for interviews, for instance, but they may pay for a trip to New York and a hotel stay for interview subjects.

A CBS News executive was criticized in 2003 for pitching former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch for an interview and mentioning potential opportunities offered by sister units of Viacom-owned CBS News, including MTV networks, publisher Simon & Schuster and CBS entertainment.

The Jackson special was the biggest splash yet for Bashir, hired from British TV last year to help ABC News stay competitive in the race for big interviews with Barbara Walters' semi-retirement. When ABC aired Bashir's interview with Jackson during the February ratings sweeps two years ago, it was seen by 27 million people.

Interest in the pop star has obviously waned. Thursday's special drew only 8.8 million viewers, leaving ABC a distant third to CBS and NBC in the time slot, according to Nielsen Media Research.